Threshold: Alienville

“I want my baby! Where’s my baby?! I want my baby!”

Well, here we are: the series finale of a cancelled show. Never a happy thing, especially when, as with Threshold, the showrunners weren’t given enough time to wrap up any of the important things. Like, for instance, the alien invasion. As a season finale, “Alienville” is promising. As a series finale, it’s unsatisfying.

Threshold: Vigilante

“I don’t know if I can go back to Earth girls.”

After the previous episode’s threat of a massive foodborne outbreak, “Vigilante” keeps the story on the small scale by focusing on a man partially alienized and the effect of his actions on the team. While this is a solid episode, it’s a pity that Threshold didn’t keep the momentum going: a gradual escalation in scale leading towards the season (and series) finale would have made these last few episode live up to the promise of the series.

Threshold: Outbreak

“We’re looking at the tip of the iceberg.”

The previous episode, “The Crossing,” emphasized the personal tragedy of an alien infection but ended with a great cliffhanger: the food supply has been infected with the alien virus. What’s the chance of both Adams and Lucas eating infected food? Well, that depends on just how much food is infected. And that’s a big, big problem.

Threshold: The Crossing

“Blow by blow of my final days as a human?”

As in “Revelations,” Threshold does better than it should in this episode. Adams’s slow pull away from his humanity could feel like a tacky cameo death: new character introduced only to die and make everyone consider the stakes. But it works, because “The Crossing” is the moment in which the impact of the alien invasion hits home for Molly, Cavennaugh, and the rest of the team.

Threshold: Progeny

“To think in the 50s we were afraid of little green men.”

Three seemingly-unrelated women, all infected—and one of them has billions of dollars at her disposal. On the one hand, we should be happy that infectees only pop once a week. On the other hand, aliens with funding for R&D can’t be a great idea. Especially not when infectee-pregnancy is on the line.

Threshold: Revelations

“The end of the world as we know it.”

The success of this episode is largely due to James Frain’s turn as a man who thinks he is a prophet and discovers he is not. In lesser hands, that story could be trite, but his journey from faith to horror was sad, not silly. The toothy lettuce, on the other hand, was nightmarish.

Threshold: The Order

“I’m the one that’s having a nightmare here.”

This is a fun episode that gives a hint of just how complicated this show could be in the right hands and with more seasons. The writers balanced some human-interest stories with some bureaucratic insanity, and they leavened it all with a delightful amount of humor in the Ramsey/Lucas interactions while still emphasizing the growing alien menace.

Threshold: Pulse

“You want to save the world, Caffrey, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to save everyone in it.”

Molly wants to save everyone. The infectees, the team, the whole world. But she is unwilling to sacrifice some to save many, and maintains some hope of “redemption” for even the most lost of causes. But how can someone be redeemed if they don’t want to be? How can they come to accept the human frailty they’ve left behind now that they’ve been "improved"?

Threshold: Shock

“No good can come from a bomb expert with a van.”

Molly claims that “historically, the public can’t help but panic in a crisis.” And what with panic being contagious, the public shouldn’t know about the missing crewmen who have been infected with alien mojo. Plus, that would ruin the show: most episodes so far have been structured around looking for one more missing crew member. “The Burning” is no different, and it balances to crewman-of-the-week plot nicely with some more fascinating mythological developments in the lab.

Threshold: The Burning

“Enjoy the Buckeye State.”

Local legend Richard Tate burned his family alive and lived a quiet life in a mental institution—until now! Is he a crazy escapee, a psychic superhero, a haunted man plagued by his “darkest self,” or something else entirely? If Threshold had continued into a second season, Richard’s tragic story likely would have been key to understanding the aliens’ larger plans. Even without that pay-off, though, this episode still hits all the right notes and sets up promising challenges for our team.

Threshold: Blood of the Children

“They’re just kids.”

If nothing else, Threshold does good horror. Molly’s dream sequences make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and the scenes certainly amp up the tension. Team Threshold isn’t just looking for one crewman after another. They’re fighting something within themselves, something that affects their brains and might affect even more.

Threshold: Trees Made of Glass, Part 2

“Focus on the task, not the fear of the task.”

If you weren’t impressed with Molly Caffrey in the first part of this pilot two-parter, I hope you are now. I can’t help but think that the writers had the Buffy pilot in mind as they wrote the opening scene: take a pretty girl in a flimsy dress, present her as a victim, and then turn the tables.

Threshold: Trees Made of Glass, Part 1

“I like to worry about things from all angles.”

Threshold aired in 2005-2006 as part of CBS’s plan to capitalize on the Lost-inspired craze for complex genre TV. Like many of the shows that attempted to capitalize on Lost’s magical formula of character ensembles, mythology, philosophy, and pseudo-science, Threshold failed to gain the viewers or the following necessary to succeed. Of the thirteen episodes produced, only nine even aired.

Threshold

Reviews | Articles | Cast |

Threshold is CBS's 2005 attempt to capitalize on the Lost craze, with mixed results. While ratings were low and only nine of the thirteen produced episodes ever aired, Threshold is a solid if unexceptional genre show with a first-rate cast that includes Carla Gugino, Brent Spiner, Rob Benedict, Peter Dinklage, and Charles S. Dutton. And who doesn't love an alien invasion... without any aliens?

Reviews

1.1 Trees Made of Glass, Part 1
1.2 Trees Made of Glass, Part 2
1.3 Blood of the Children
1.4 The Burning
1.5 Shock
1.6 Pulse
1.7 The Order
1.8 Revelations
1.9 Progeny
1.10 The Crossing
1.11 Outbreak
1.12 Vigilante
1.13 Alienville

Articles

Billie's review of the pilot

Cast

Carla Gugino (Molly Caffrey)
Brian Van Holt (Sean Cavennaugh)
Brent Spiner (Nigel Fenway)
Rob Benedict (Lucas Pegg)
Peter Dinklage (Arthur Ramsey)
Charles S. Dutton (J.T. Baylock)

Threshold: Pilot

"It was like a forest, but the trees were made of glass."

Emboldened by the success of Lost, last season's phenomenon, all of the networks are jumping on the bandwagon this fall with their own science fiction dramas. Most of these efforts will sink ignominiously beneath the waves. Threshold may very well be the one that makes it.